Promoting health insurance exchange, with no help from state

Texas officials have declined to establish a state-based health insurance marketplace, a major provision of the federal Affordable Care Act. So private organizations are working to educate Texans about coverage options through the federal health insurance exchange, which opens on Oct. 1. Of the more than 6.3 million uninsured Texans — the state has the country's highest rate of uninsured residents — almost half will be eligible to buy insurance through the federal exchange, an online tool for coverage shopping. But Texans suffer from a "general lack of knowledge" about the law, said Allison Brim, a director at the Texas Organizing Project, one of several groups working to reach uninsured families before the federal exchange's rollout.